Iowa Comprehensive Lung Imaging Center

The Iowa Comprehensive Lung Imaging Center represents a dream held by a group of loosely knit collaborators who were joined together with a common interest in the use of quantitative imaging techniques to better understand the normal lung and the changes leading to and defining pathologic states. Each member of this group were well recognized in their own right and their backgrounds were diverse and included Physiology, Medicine, Radiology, Anesthesiology, Mathematics, Electrical Engineering, and Biomedical Engineering. While each of these individuals ran successful laboratories, there was a clear need for a dedicated imaging center which would serve as a gathering place and would provide these individuals access to state-of-the-art facilities in which to accomplish their research. This facility would provide for a means of interacting with and influencing industrial partners in regards to the future directions of imaging technologies, and it would provide a synergy serving to rapidly advance both the field of lung imaging and our understanding of the lung.

With this dream in hand, and after traveling the world in conjunction with one scanner manufacturer seeking to find a very large sum of money to build the "ultimate" dynamic volumetric CT scanner, the stars seemed to align. Simultaneous to the emergence of multidetector row CT, NIH announced the creation of their Bioengineering Research Partnership grant program. Over dinner at a Mexican restaurant at the SPIE Medical Imaging meeting, the team made a pact to submit a BRP proposal with only weeks left before the deadline. Through sleepless nights and with e-mails sent back and forth across the country, with write-ups completed on vacations, in between classes, and whenever else a moment could be stolen, the team successfully applied for and received NIH HL-064368: Image and Model Based Analysis of Lung Disease. The project sought to establish a normal atlas/model of the human lung based upon newly developing methods of x-ray CT imaging. The original partnership was formed with Picker International and has more recently joined efforts with Siemens Medical.

With the advantages of synergy and early success, we have been grateful that numerous other companies, leaders in their respective fields, including Olympus, Aventis, Amersham, Puritan-Bennett, Diversified Diagnostic Products Inc., Emphasys Medical, and Stereotaxis have joined in these efforts.

Sensing the growing importance of these efforts, the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine working with the Departments of Radiology and Medicine have substantially contributed to the establishment of the facilities and infrastructure which provide a world class environment for the current and future nurturing of this growing team of international researchers focused on understanding the lung.